


all that i was i've left behind me

by elliptical



Series: unbecoming jordan hennessy [5]
Category: Dreamer Trilogy - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Drunk Driving, Gen, Hennessy Is Her Own Content Warning, Substance Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:01:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28058838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliptical/pseuds/elliptical
Summary: “Can’t tell them,” Alba said, casual, taking another drag. “Can’t breathe a goddamn word, I expect.  All your hauntings and your timers and your gory, gory nightmares.  Not exactly wholesome dinner conversation.  I get it.  I do.  But youcouldtell me.”Hennessy pushed herself up on her elbows.  Her gaze was keen, bright, curious.  “Why you?”“‘Cause I’m you,” Alba said, still casual.  “So I know when something’s up.”
Relationships: Alba (Dreamer Trilogy) & Hennessy (Dreamer Trilogy)
Series: unbecoming jordan hennessy [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2052732
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	all that i was i've left behind me

Alba fucking loved driving.

This came as no surprise. Her arrival came exactly one month after Hennessy received her first legal, passed-the-test, honest-to-God-not-a-forgery license. Hennessy had been driving with the forged ID for at least two years. But the official license sure was a confidence boost. The _establishment_ had now deemed her good enough to burn rubber. What an honor.

Alba’s dreamed-up brain came pre-loaded with the Pennsylvania driver’s manual, the schematics of six of Bill Dower’s cars, and every racing track she’d ever visited. Well, that Hennessy had visited. Alba sometimes struggled to remember that her fondest childhood memories didn’t belong to her.

Really, that none of her childhood memories belonged to her.

Alba liked to go fast.

She’d always liked to go fast. None of the other girls seemed to share this manic impulse except perhaps Hennessy herself. Jordan adopted the air of a nurturing big sister, June the air of a much bossier one. Madox took pleasure in nothing except the pounding of her fists. Farrah was a ghost, a wraith, like Hennessy hadn’t quite created an entire human being. Like she’d left something important behind in the dream.

Each copy destroyed another piece of Hennessy. The pain was a gift to her, a repayment for the life she’d so graciously bestowed. Equivalent exchange. 

Alba knew this. She’d been given the particulars of their collective terminal diagnosis. Each body piloted one torn piece of Hennessy’s soul. If Farrah was the most incomplete copy to date, then Alba herself must be half a human. 

In some ways, though, she’d been lucky: every future copy would glitch worse. The human shreds would slim and slim and slim without ever vanishing. A paradox in the making, an inside-out nightmare.

There was no need to question the conclusion; this implacable truth sank deep into her marrow. The proof may have been flawed, the logic based around extrapolation and projection and neurotic reasoning. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that Alba believed it.

Incomplete.

Alba didn’t feel incomplete. If anything, she felt the opposite: She recalled aspects of her stolen childhood that no other copies shared.

She remembered when she’d first learned to love high speeds. Bill Dower had taken her ice skating on the weekends for almost an entire year of her life. She’d been... six or seven, maybe. Those rink outings were the closest they ever came to father-daughter tradition. She would strap into her elbow pads and knee pads and the stuffy helmet that squished her hair flat to her skull, and then she would _zoom_ around the rink at the highest possible speed. The rush of wind was always exhilarating, terrifying, _purifying._ She loved the weightless glide, the power in every outward push of her feet. She beat all the kids her age and then beat most of the teenagers and some of the adults, too. Bill signed her up for hockey tryouts so she could “really show them who’s boss,” and she was so excited to pummel everyone’s slowpoke ass, except then he forgot or - no, then her mother had -

Alba’s mind got a little fuzzy when she tried to remember anything Jay had done.

Considering everything that Jay had been, though, she counted that as a blessing. Clearly _Hennessy_ couldn’t cope with the memories, given that her problems had begun right after Jay’s suicide. Alba didn’t know whether the other girls had made the connection. Jordan had attended the funeral, sure, but Alba wasn’t certain anyone understood just how _direct_ the cause-and-effect was. Jay had died, and she’d killed Hennessy in the process. A generational curse, a tale older than time. C’est la vie.

Alba didn’t know why she spent so much time dissecting her childhood, either. It was like an itch that kept returning. The more she tried to leave the irritation be, the worse the urge to scratch became. She’d find herself two hours deep into replaying some wide-eyed snapshot of innocence, scratching her psychic itches bloody, and she’d wake to find her autopilot body shambling miles away from where she’d started.

She asked Hennessy about it once - about whether her dreams reflected her childhood memories. About whether the mirror distorted the facts.

Hennessy stared at Alba with an expression that could only be described as _shell-shock,_ like she teetered over an open grave. A moment passed. Then her eyes creased and her lip curled and her head tilted toward the sun, teeth flashing in the light, the very definition of condescending mirth. She laughed, meanly, and said, “As though I’d tell _you._ Of all fucking people.”

The pair of them were lying on the roof of the McMansion, idly smoking their way through a pack of cigarettes. Bill and Jen had vanished, and thank fucking God for that. Impromptu departures weren’t unusual. Bill left an envelope of cash and a hasty note on the kitchen table, the only parenting necessary before he chased his bliss. Since he’d disappeared, every single one of the girls had relaxed, letting their collective guards down. The whole fucking world became lighter. The six of them could _breathe._

Alba exhaled a long lungful of smoke. Hennessy’s meaning was clear enough: Alba was a glitching parasite, a burden unworthy of her time or attention. If Hennessy wanted someone to listen, she’d look for Jordan. June, if need be. Farrah as a last resort. Even _Madox_ made a better target. Hennessy wouldn’t dump her sad feelings on the crazy adrenaline-junkie bitch with nothing to offer and less to lose. She was too fucking smart for that shit.

“Can’t tell them,” Alba said, casual, taking another drag. “Can’t breathe a goddamn word, I expect. All your hauntings and your timers and your gory, gory nightmares. Not exactly wholesome dinner conversation. I get it. I do. But you _could_ tell me.”

Hennessy pushed herself up on her elbows. Her gaze was keen, bright, curious. “Why you?”

“‘Cause I’m you,” Alba said, still casual. “So I know when something’s up.”

Hennessy wouldn’t know what it meant for Alba to be her, because Alba wasn’t sure herself. The childhood memories felt important. Why could Alba remember when the others couldn’t? Was it a defect or a feature? 

Whatever Hennessy had wanted, that wasn’t it. There was something defeated about the way she laid back on the roof. Frustrated, maybe. Hopeless.

“I want to forget,” she said.

“Me too,” Alba replied. Even now, the kerosene flame stirred at the back of her throat. “Only thing is, I can’t remember what the fuck I’m forgetting.”

Maybe this was the source of her itching. If she dug deep enough through the layers of developmental bedrock, she’d find the truth. Hennessy had dreamed her with all of her desperate desire to outrun the enemy - and no tactical knowledge about the enemy itself.

Alba needed to _know._

Hennessy was quiet for a long moment. Alba held her breath. She thought - she was _certain_ \- that Hennessy knew the answers. That Hennessy could offer the answers, soothe the ache, keep Alba’s mind tethered on a single plane.

Hennessy finally said, “Then let’s go fucking forget.”

Because Hennessy would never release this piece of her leverage. Her power over the girls granted her immunity. As long as she controlled what they needed, she was safe from repercussions. No combination of magic words would ever pry apart her traitor lips. 

Alba wasn’t going to fucking beg.

Maybe mutual suffering was an immutable destiny.

Maybe Alba had entered the world too decayed for autonomy.

Maybe -

Maybe she just needed to forget. Forgetting seemed like a great fucking idea. Maybe Hennessy was a genius.

They were both two Adderall, half a bottle of vodka, and a full pint of Rocky Road into their binge when Alba suggested the race. She wasn’t good at lying still. Her legs wriggled, restless. She needed to run, or bike, or drive. She needed to accelerate until the shadows edging her vision blew away. She needed to go so fast that God himself couldn’t find her.

So what if she was drunk? The stimulants would cancel the sluggishness. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter.

Hennessy laughed, incredulous, but Alba pressed on. “I bet Bill’s Camaro could kick the Porsche’s ass.”

Hennessy, the most loyal defender of the Porsche, said, “You’re on.”

Pennsylvania was, in many ways, the worst fucking place on Earth. But there was one solid pro: They didn’t have to stray far from the city limits to find winding rural backroads. Alba and Hennessy drove out to Amish country, where it was possible to cruise for an hour without meeting a stoplight. Some rural areas writhed with tourists, but once they moved deep into the farmland, the only witnesses were the cows and God.

They were both drunk. The drive there had made this fact indisputable, Adderall or no Adderall. There had been a few close calls with pedestrians.

They also did not care. 

If Hennessy got herself killed, the rest of them would sink into peaceful slumber. Alba didn’t understand why the others found the option so intolerable. And if Alba got herself killed, well.

There was no traffic light to signal their start. Instead, Alba held her portable stereo out the open window, her phone plugged in, the volume cranked up. The recorded gunshot blasted over the roar of the engines. 

She laughed, wild, and slammed the pedal to the floor, tossing the stereo into the passenger seat with no regard for the way it bounced. The window rolled up just as Hennessy shot out in front of her, kicking up clouds of choking dust. _Not a moment too soon._

The rural road was narrow, two lanes bisected by yellow paint. To race side-by-side, Hennessy had claimed the passing lane she shared with oncoming traffic. The sun beat down on golden fields and straight pavement that stretched nearly to the horizon, the afternoon clear and bright and empty. There were no buggies or horses or vehicles in sight. They were safe, maybe.

No, Alba thought, the world was safe from _them._

Such a thought meant that she wasn’t moving fast enough. She shifted gears; the Camaro whined. The force of her acceleration thrust her back against the seat, centrifugal force threatening to wrench her hands from the wheel. It was an amusement park’s thrill. It was an ascending whine in her ears. It was a buzzing in her skull, a rising cacophony that drowned her consciousness, a vibration that rattled her teeth. 

She laughed, long and loud. The winner didn’t matter. The memories didn’t matter. Hennessy’s cruelty didn’t matter. All that mattered was this: the glitter-sharp edges of the stimulants, the pain-blunted dullness of the booze, the heart-speeding power of the chase. This moment, and the next, and the next, an upward curve on an exponential graph. Speed that made her _fly._ Terminal velocity.

The race itself concluded within fifteen seconds. They’d chosen a barn near the road as their finish line, and Hennessy reached it first. Alba blew past her, making no effort to slow down. It was funny. Hennessy’s furious face in the rearview mirror was funny. The cloud of dust she created was funny. The rattling cabin was funny, and the sun above, and the fields beside, and the cows, and the barns, and the road’s approaching curve. All of it would keep being so fucking funny until the deceleration, and then the high would dissolve, and the shadows would encroach, and Alba would once again long to douse herself in gasoline and light a match.

The wheels skidded on the shoulder as she careened around the curve. The speedometer inched past 100. The car shuddered, threatening to flip, before the low center of gravity corrected the balance. Nothing would kill this goddamn Camaro by accident. All these modern fucking cars with their modern fucking safety features. Alba sighted a single tree in the distance, broad and thick and towering, and a thought struck her.

It was not one of the _scrub-away-please-forget-please-remember-please-I-want-to-rest_ bad thoughts. It was also not a coherent epiphany. She couldn’t put words to the conviction. But she knew, suddenly, that she didn’t want to stop. She knew that she never wanted to stop. She didn’t want to go home. She didn’t want to think about Hennessy’s willingness to worsen her sickness just so she’d keep the upper hand. She didn’t want to dissolve into untrue memories while her body moved outside her control. She didn’t want to think about the itching, or the brokenness, or the futility, or the fact that she couldn’t stop running. She wanted to feel _good,_ and she wanted her end to feel good, and she did not want to waste away slow like Hennessy, and she was allowed to do what Hennessy couldn’t.

Alba found herself humming with sympathy. It was easier, here in the high speeds and manic exhilaration and approaching oblivion, to understand. Hennessy couldn’t fall. Her life was not her own, just as none of theirs belonged to them. Broken patchwork pieces, the lot of them.

The tree grew closer, rapid, wide and beckoning and sturdy enough to stop an impact cold.

Alba wrenched the wheel, and the car bumped onto the grass, and the friction battered so hard she bit her tongue, and salty blood filled her mouth, and she shoved the pedal back to the floor, and she held her breath.

At the last second, just before the universe ripped apart, just before the pain of unmaking obliterated all she’d ever been,

she closed her eyes.


End file.
